News, insights and resources for parents of kids with autism spectrum disorders

Sunday, December 17, 2006

Another Review of Sigourney Weaver in "Snow Cake"

The Toronto Star has a good review of "Snow Cake," the film in which Sigourney Weaver plays a high-functioning autistic woman who has to cope with a death in her family. This is "a film for mature, discerning audiences who still believe that cinema can illuminate the human condition," reviewer Bruce Kirland writes. It also says:

Weaver plays an adult with autism. She functions rather well and on her own terms in Wawa, Ontario. She lives alone in her own house, works in a supermarket stacking shelves and maintains contact with her adult daughter.

Weaver, who rigorously researched autism and adopted phrases as well as physical movements from autistic adults who mentored her, plays the character with a ferocity and lack of conscious ego. This is not a trick, flash performance. She makes her character absolutely alive.

The rules of conduct inside her house -- her way of maintaining order in the chaos of everyday life -- are authentic and never ridiculed in this sophisticated film, except by people who show their ignorance by doing so.

The movie's title refers to the fact that Weaver's character has a penchant for eating fresh snow.